


Nightfall

by MyMisguidedFairytale



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Inspired AU, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, F/M, Gift Fic, One Shot, Romance, The Author Regrets Nothing, Twilight Parody, Twilight References, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 19:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyMisguidedFairytale/pseuds/MyMisguidedFairytale
Summary: About three things, Cheadle is absolutely positive.





	Nightfall

**Author's Note:**

> _Nightfall_ was originally written and published on September 04, 2014 on [tumblr](https://cheadle-yorkshire.tumblr.com/post/96653726127/fanfiction-hunter-x-hunter-nightfall).
> 
> Everything below is preserved as it was originally posted:
> 
> **Title** : Nightfall  
>  **Pairing** : Pariston x Cheadle  
>  **Word Count** : 2560  
>  **Summary** : About three things, Cheadle is absolutely positive.  
>  **For** : blue-mint-winter, who requested vampire parody PariCheadle, because Pariston sparkles.  
>  **A/N** : This is about as ridiculous as you would expect.

_**Nightfall** _

Cheadle stares at the tray in front of her. It is metal, and portioned out into little sections for the meat, the side dishes, and the dessert–Thursdays are sage-grouse day, a kind of wild bird from the country’s highlands that tasted quite good in anyone’s hands but the cooks in the Hunter Association building’s cafeteria. Cheadle reaches for the pudding cup first.

“Don’t look now, but you’ll never guess who’s back,” Cluck whispers from across the table, jabbing her spoon in Cheadle’s direction. “I thought the Rat was too good to eat with us regular people.”

Beside her, Piyon continues texting. The lunch tray in front of her is empty. “None of us are regular people, Cluck, we’re _Hunters_.”

Cheadle turns her head, and Cluck drops her spoon. “Hey! I said not to look!”

No one in the group of five carries a tray, but they still make their way down the center aisle of the cafeteria like it’s a runway and take their seats at the table in the farthest corner away from where Cheadle sits with the other women of the Zodiac Twelve. They’re such a strange group, the Vice-Chairman and his retinue; they only appear to have one thing in common, and that is their uncommonly bizarre appearances. Pariston Hill is the tallest among them, in a suit of green plaid, and as he crosses his legs and rests his arms on the table, the woman seated next to him–short and round-faced with a tightly coiled mess of brown hair–says something that makes the other three people at the table burst into laughter.

Cheadle continues to watch the group, drawing her eyes back towards Pariston. He’s staring right back at her; flustered, she turns back around, busying herself with her uneaten lunch. The look in his eyes stays with her–it’s something she can’t quite explain. His eyes had seemed very, very cold, and just as hard.

“Weird,” Cluck says, having observed the entire silent exchange. “He’s still staring at you. What a creeper.”

“Yeah,” Cheadle agrees absently.

“Don’t even bother trying to understand that man,” she continues. “It’s a waste of your time and your talents.”

Across the table, Piyon eyes her tray. “You gonna eat that?”

“Yeah,” she repeats, but she finds her appetite has mostly vanished from the memory of Pariston’s stare. Still, she starts in on her lunch, unwilling to let Pariston of all people have any kind of negative effect on her day. Let him stare if he wants; it’s not like she has any control over what he does or why. But she can control her own mind, and she dutifully tries to keep him out of hers.

When she goes to take a bite of her food, she finds that it is cold.

–

The research room is crowded on that day; a group of Beast and Sea Hunters had been tasked by the Hunter Association with the documentation and classification of a series of new species recently discovered in the neighboring country, and the recently-returned team was busy setting out photographs and arguing over a series of maps and displays. They’d taken up most of the tables in the room, and the other side of the library was taken up by the many rows of neatly organized bookcases.

The only open seat, Cheadle notes sourly, is situated right next to Pariston Hill. His back is to her, and as she approaches, clutching her medical textbook close to her chest, she coughs to get his attention.

“Is this seat taken?” She makes a point to keep the inflection of her voice as flat as possible, but it is hardly a challenge at the complete indifference he shows her now. He barely looks at her, and leans away from the empty chair.

“No,” he says, and she sits down for lack of any other options, opening the book to the section on medicinal plants. Beside her, Pariston fidgets, maintaining that strange distance as he leans away from her, resting his elbows on the table almost as a shield in-between them.

If he did not want her there, he should have said so. If she has done anything to anger him, she is unaware of it, and yet again Cheadle finds her thoughts shifting from the work she should be doing back to Pariston.

“You seem tired,” Cheadle comments, hoping to draw Pariston into some kind of conversation. “Late night?”

“You have _no_ idea.”

“You could stop by the lab,” she says. “I’d be happy to prescribe you—”

“That won’t be necessary.” He’s flipping the pages of his own book much too quickly, and Cheadle frowns, remembering the last encounter they’d had in similar circumstances.

–

_While Cheadle is the senior medical professional of the Hunter Association, most of the higher-ranking members have their own personal physicians. Still, she asks that all members in any kind of executive capacity report to her for a medical assessment, for the Association’s records and to preempt any problems with stress or illness. Pariston Hill had rescheduled twice, and even sent over bloodwork records from his own physician, before he had finally appeared in the Association’s medical suite at Cheadle’s repeated insistence._

 _He had filled out all the requisite paperwork, and as Cheadle went over it with him, it was hard to believe that anyone in his position could be so well-adjusted. No sleep troubles. No family history of heart disease or similar conditions. No regular medications, no allergies, no record of surgeries or history with drugs or alcohol. It’s suspicious, and he deflects any attempts at further questioning or requests for subsequent testing. Still, she manages to get an eye and ear exam out of him, and checks his_ Nen _, and catalogues his height and weight. These tests he submits to without protest, but when she pulls the stethoscope from around her neck he stiffens._

_“All that’s left is to listen to your heartbeat. If you could—”_

_His phone rings, loudly, and Cheadle winces at how shrill his ringtone is; her own ears are rather sensitive. He takes the call without any kind of excuse, his face the picture of shock and regret. After he hangs up, he turns to Cheadle, his voice dripping with apologies._

_“It’s an emergency. I’m afraid I really must go. This will have to wait.”_

_She’s already holding out the stethoscope, and says with frustration, “It’ll only take a minute! Just—”_

_“Sorry, sorry!” And he takes her hands in his, pushing the stethoscope away from his body. “It’s important! You know how my work can be.”_

_His hands are cold, too cold, and her medically-inclined brain is already running through a list of possible reasons for such a thing—he’s sick, he was handling something cold before arriving here, perhaps it was something to do with his aura—and she attempts to press her thumb against his wrist, to feel for his pulse, when he yanks his hands out of her grasp. Before she can question him again, he’s putting his suit jacket back on. He even buttons it, covering up a shirt patterned with dark starbursts, and they swell when he takes a deep breath._

_Cheadle frowns, trying to concentrate again—her hearing really is quite good, and she hadn’t noticed any of the same concern Pariston had showed coming from the person on the other end of the line, but she hadn’t been close enough to hear just what they had been saying, so she decides to take his word for it._

_He leaves, and she stares at the paperwork, and then at the medical files he had sent her, and can come up with nothing to explain his resistance._

–

It’s against the rules to eat in the library, but that doesn’t stop some of the other Hunters in the room from passing around a few bags of dried fruit. When it gets to Cheadle she takes a piece, and offers the rest to Pariston; he refuses.

“So you don’t like fruit,” she says, passing the bag to another table, “and you don’t like the food in the cafeteria. What do you like? Rat.”

“What does a rat eat?” He looks privately amused at both the question and her reaction.

“…Cheese?”

He laughs, covering his mouth with one hand. His skin is so pale; the veins should stand out more, but the closer she tries to look the more he shields himself, once more folding his arms around his book and ducking his head as if to read the words better. “It was rhetorical.”

The clock on the wall above their heads marks the time, and the moment the minute hand swipes across the hour he closes his book and stands abruptly, leaving Cheadle and the library without another word.

She decides that Cluck was right–she shouldn’t even bother trying to understand why he’s acting this way. And later, when she walks past his office on the way to her own desk, she can see him still reading that same book, and still wearing the same surly expression. She makes a point of turning her nose up as she passes the open door.

Her desk isn’t close to the window, but when her work winds down she makes a point of walking over to the closest one to check the weather. It’s been raining off and on all day, and to her elation, the rain is gone, even if the sky still looks ominously dark.

Strange. Her eyes are drawn to the figure of Pariston Hill, standing on the sidewalk in front of the Association building. Is he waiting for someone? She presses her palms against the cool glass of the window to lean closer, trying to make out more of his expression from her viewpoint four floors up. Then the wind blows his hair away from his face; Cheadle squints through her glasses, convinced her mind is playing tricks on her. The strange light she’d seen glinting off the exposed skin of his face and neck must have come from the glare on the windowpanes, or the metallic thread in his suit jacket?

She pulls her glasses down to rub at her eyes, and when she slides them back on, Pariston Hill is gone.

–

She doesn’t see Pariston at all over the next few days. It’s a blessing, and she’s able to work without interruption; even the rest of his posse seems to be absent, and when she eats her lunch she cannot help but glance over at the empty table in the corner. She would ask the others if they know where Pariston is, if she thought she’d get an answer. The more she thinks about it, the more Cheadle realizes that this kind of unpredictable schedule is actually more of a pattern for him than he lets on; it’s only now that she’s actually began to notice his strange absences.

She wonders where he’s going, and what other secrets he could be hiding.

There are a few terraces in the building; Cheadle’s favorite is on the tenth floor. It used to be a popular place for smokers, but since she had the practice banned that particular terrace has been largely unoccupied. She visits it when she wants to get some fresh air, or when she wants to be alone.

In the late afternoon, the majority of the terrace is shaded by the rest of the building, but still, she squints her eyes against the harshness of the sunlight, made worse through the lenses of her glasses.

She can smell a very particular, very strong cologne. Turning sharply, Cheadle searches out the corners of the terrace for its wearer. Nearly unnoticeable with his back against the wall, hidden in the curve of a shadow, stands Pariston Hill.

He doesn’t look surprised to see her there. If anything, he looks like he expected it. Like he knows what she’ll say next.

“You’ve been avoiding me. Rat.”

He replies smoothly, “And you’ve been making inquiries about me. You could have just asked, you know.”

“And now you’re avoiding the question.” She steps closer to him, standing on the edge of the shadow. His eyes are not nearly as dark as she remembers. It gives her courage.

“It’s for your own good. You should stay away from me.”

She frowns at him, burying her recoil at the unexpectedly harsh tone in his voice beneath several layers of bravado. “Is that what you want?”

“I didn’t say that,” he says.

Cheadle is silent, and Pariston continues. “My dear Cheadle. Do you think you could stand to know all my secrets? Are you _ready_ to know them?”

“I know what you are.” She says it too quickly; his mouth stretches up into a facsimile of a smile, and for the first time Cheadle begins to doubt her vigilance.

“Tell me.”

She wants to say that she’s never seen him eat or drink anything; that his eyes seem to change color; that he doesn’t have a heartbeat; that underneath the scent of his cologne is the lingering smell of blood. Instead, she is frozen to the spot, caught by the same strange look in his eyes and the flash of teeth that is anything but innocuous.

“Say it.”

Cheadle breathes again, and her eyes blink in the sunlight. It’s as if a spell has been broken. Instead, she relaxes, and cocks her head. The different perspective helps.

“Step out of the shadows, please,” she says.

He looks momentarily surprised, before acquiescing to her request and inclining his head towards her. He takes one step, then two, before the shadow slices across his chest and he is standing before her in the sunlight, entirely too close, and she cannot breathe again for the way his skin shines, as if it is covered with hundreds of tiny diamonds. She wasn’t mistaken earlier.

And then he leans forward, coming even closer, and Cheadle realizes that the scent of blood wasn’t just coming from Pariston. It was coming from his mouth.

“Say it,” he whispers against her ear. “Out loud. Say it.”

“ _Rat_ ,” she hisses, matching up the facts with what she knows about every bit of folklore she’s ever heard. “Vampire.”

“I won’t contradict that. I should tell you, I feel…such a profound desire to drink your blood.” And she takes a step back, noting the disappointment in his face; when he smiles at her again, she can see his fangs.

“It’s a good thing you’re known for your self control,” she mutters, and is rewarded with a chuckle.

“It’s a good thing I like you,” he reminds her. “I’ve decided I’m not going to stay away anymore.”

“Oh,” she breathes. He steps forward to match her, and soon they are standing in another patch of shadow. In the absence of sunlight, his face looks normal again. Cheadle reaches up a hand to touch him; even through her gloves, his skin is ice cold. He seems to lean into her palm.

About three things, she is absolutely positive. First, Pariston is a vampire. Second, that there is a part of him–and she has no idea how strong that part might be–that thirsts for her blood. And third, that he is about to become an even bigger pain in the neck.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I read Twilight study guides for this, you guys. That is something that actually exists. So all the quotes and references were totally on-purpose and thanks to those. Although I couldn’t bring myself to add ‘you’re my own personal brand of heroin’ or 'hold on spider monkey.’ And now you have those mental images. You’re welcome.
> 
> 2\. This was so hard to write omg. Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your comments.


End file.
